


As You Sweetly Slumber

by auselysium



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 05:37:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4379309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d never meant for it to become a thing, watching Robert sleep.  But it is in those moments, those quiet moments, where he can see all the many facets of the man he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As You Sweetly Slumber

**Author's Note:**

> Based off an ages old Anon prompt asking for Aaron watching Robert sleep. I kind of went overboard! Sorry it took forever!

Aaron doesn’t miss France.

He doesn’t miss the food or the anxiety that would flare in his gut every time his tongue would trip over the language. And he doesn’t miss Ed, not really. Not anymore at least.

But sometimes, on a night like this when the country stillness presses so close around him it’s like he’s being smothered by a cloak of thick brown velvet, Aaron misses the noise.

That ever-present, undercurrent of a place just big enough to be a city. A place alive through the night but only to the point of distraction, never disruption. France had given him a soundtrack to fall asleep to. That is what he truly misses.

Tonight, there is only the wind blowing through the naked trees outside Home Farm and Robert’s quiet snores.

Aaron turns his head on the plush pillow, eying Robert’s lax face.

His lover sleeps languidly, his limbs spread, basking in the comfort of his own bed and the afterglow of their first night together in a very long time.

But with the silence surrounding Aaron, leaving his memories of recent guilt too loud in his own head, along with the ever present reminder of _her_ that greets him at every corner, not even the sleepy touch of his lover can bring sleep to Aaron.

So instead he watches.

*

He comes across Robert passed out on Diane’s couch.

Robert had been an honest drunk and his half hearted kiss...well, it had been unexpected. It had felt alright to be there for Robert. To help him when he’d needed it, even though he’d never let anyone know he’d felt that way.

Aaron stops and stares down at Robert’s unconscious form, the pint he was taking up to his room still in his hand and he’s struck by how little he’s seen of Robert in this state. His vanity and arrogance laid aside by innocent rest.

He looks a bit ridiculous tucked up on Diane’s tiny settee, his long legs scrunched up to fit, his arms hanging limp towards the floor. He’s still got his coat on and his shoes.

Aaron’s heart twinges.

Taking pity where pity is due, Aaron crouches down and undoes the laces of his shoes. He slips them off, careful not to wake him. He lays a blanket over him gently, not letting his hands linger or his eyes wander.

Robert mumbles something as Aaron leaves, his dignity still intact, if not heartily tested.

*

The night he leaves her, Aaron sits on an uncomfortable swivel-chair in the sepia-toned light of a hotel room, cracking tin after tin of lager, watching Robert’s listless sleep, thinking this night was not nearly as triumphant as he’d imagined it would be.

Robert tosses from side to side, starting out under the thin duvet before kicking it off with a long sigh. He’s stripped down to his boxers and undershirt. His fancy trousers and one of those patterned button downs he’s so fond of and that Aaron has begrudgingly become fond of too, is laid out on what would be Aaron’s side of the bed.

As the light in the sky outside begins to soften, Aaron finally joins him, laying on his back, tucking an arm behind his head.

Robert’s eyes open with immediate clarity, an indication of just how light his sleep had been.

“Hey,” he says, only clearing his throat after the word catches in his throat.

“Hey,” Aaron says for lack of anything better to say.

And much as Aaron had hoped he would have done the night before when he’d been beckoned to this nondescript hotel on the edge of Leeds with a simple text of _I’ve done it_ followed moments later by an address, Robert’s whole body warms at the sight of him. He reaches for Aaron and kisses him deep and slow.

Makes promises he can finally keep.

*  
There are entire days where they don’t leave their bed, instead making up for lost time between sweaty sheets.

Technically, it’s Robert’s bed. In the one bedroom flat he takes in Hotton. The floorboards creak and the faucet drips and the upstairs neighbor blasts Bollywood dance songs at one in the morning. But there is no one in the way to tell they _can’t_ or they _shouldn’t_. So they _do_.

Aaron finds sleep, richer and deeper, during those first days than he can ever remember.

But still he finds himself waking before his alarm, laying there, morning after morning, smelling the salty sweat and day old aftershave on Robert skin, tears forming a lump at the back of his throat, as he realizes just how deep he’s in.

It’s a daunting, helpless thing to love a man just as broken and battered down as he is.

Robert rouses during one such musing. He stretches, checks the clock. He knows Aaron well enough to see the thoughtful contemplation in his eyes.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He whispers, into the safe space between them.

“Just reminding myself not to be afraid.”

“Of what?” Robert asks, eyes blinking slowly in the morning light.

“Of us.”

Robert’s breath catches, a crease flashing between his brows as he pulls Aaron close, fitting their arms and legs tight together like puzzle pieces. They lay like that, until the demands of the day force them apart, neither needing another moment’s sleep to find repose.

*

The cold snap comes just Robert can least afford it. And for as much as they both wish he could crank the heat, not much can make up for the draft that rushes under the window sill and they both know he’d regret it at the end of the month.

Aaron would offer to help with the bills, if Robert truly needed it. His prospects are holding steady. But it is still early days for them and pride is a powerful thing, even for the fallen.

Instead, when the nights are truly bonecold, Robert makes a detour on his way to bed by way of Aaron’s overnight bag. He grabs the heavy black hoodie Aaron had worn earlier in the day and zips it all the way to his chin, hiding his blond hair under the hood, before crawling into bed.

Still, he makes a point to shiver dramatically until Aaron rolls over and holds him from behind. Aaron slides his hands under Robert’s layers and rests his palm between his pecs as Robert’s wool-socked feet tuck between Aaron’s calves.

Invariably by morning the extra layers are shedded, the socks, as well as the hoodie, lie in a limp pile on the floor next to Robert’s side of the bed.

Aaron tosses them in the laundry before heading to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

*

When he’s sick, Robert sleeps stick straight, propped up on a mound of pillows, little tub of menthol chest rub in one hand and a crumpled up kleenex in the other.

“I dying,” he whimpers, eyes still closed, as Aaron slips into the bedroom, having let himself into the flat with the key Robert had had made for him the other week. Aaron smiles, shedding his hi-vis vest and toeing off his boots.

“Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

Robert opens his eyes, which are admittedly puffy, red and watery. “Aren’t I allowed? Look at the state of me.” He manages to give Aaron a tired smirk.

“You need anything?”

“Just you. And I'd take my sinuses back, too.”

Aaron heats up leftover Chinese and climbs into bed with him. They watch Top Gear re-runs on Robert’s laptop until they both fall asleep.

*  
In the spring, renewed work contacts as well as the longer days and the flush of pale green that spreads across the valley wets Robert’s appetite for the finer things once more.

He books them a weekend away. A proper escape all the way down the A1 to London. But this time instead of staying holed up in their hotel room, using their time together to satisfy those baser needs, the two men explore the city together.

A posh dinner out, a footie match where they both cheer wholeheartedly against Arsenal, all the cliche tourist sights that Aaron has actually never seen and even a visit to a SoHo club, where by the end of the night Robert is feeling both drunk enough and secure enough in their surroundings that he wraps his arms around Aaron’s waist and kisses him full on, while waiting in the taxi queue.

Robert falls asleep on the drive home the next night, his arms crossed and his jaw slack, as his head lolls gently against the headrest with the movement of the car. Aaron turns his music down low, eyes flitting between the long stretch of road in front him and the way the lights of the oncoming traffic flicker across Robert’s handsome face.

*  
On summer nights, Robert cashes out early, the heat of the long days finally getting to him by evening. He sleeps spread across the bed, arms reaching to either side, a single sheet pulled up over only one leg, leaving wide expanses his pale, freckled skin exposed to the cooler night air.

Aaron stands in the darkness, noticing the way the small bedside lamp on Aaron’s side of the bed left on out of courtesy casts tempting shadows across Robert’s body, accentuating the gentle swells of his pecks, the dip of his abdomen near his hip bone.

Aaron strips naked before crawling on top of him, his fingers stretching the dark band of Robert’s boxers away from his body, giving him room to sneak his hand underneath to cup that bulge that had been so artfully highlighted.

“What are you doing?” Robert mumbles, even as a small smile curls his mouth under Aaron’s lips and his hips roll upwards.

“It’s not time for sleeping,” Aaron growls.

“What time is it then?”

Aaron shows him.

*

Some nights there is no sleep.

Like the night his divorce comes through and he spends hours staring out the front window onto the street below, biting back large swigs of Scotch, eyes full of what-if’s and relief all at once.   

Then there is the night of their first massive row.  It was about a month after Robert moved back to the Village and Aaron moved in with him.

Aaron ends up crashing on Adam’s couch, fuming and rehashing and wondering if shacking up together had been the worst decision of all time.

“What did he do this time?” Vic asks the following morning, her hands resting on top of her very pregnant belly.

“I honestly don’t even know. All I know is one then led to another and then I was ready to put a fist through a wall so…” He leaves it with a shrug.

When he gets home, he finds Robert, wearing the same shirt he’d had on the night before, nursing down a large cup of coffee, looking as haggard and miserable as Aaron feels.

“God, babe, I am so sorry,” Robert says, rushing to him immediately.  "I was so scared you wouldn't come back."

"You idiot," Aaron breathes, unable to hide his smile.  Perhaps he had overreacted.

Then of course, there is the night Victoria goes into labor six weeks early, contractions and bleeding that just won’t stop. Adam is a wreck and Robert is nearly just as bad.

He shows the world, and not just Aaron, how fiercely he loves those closest to him as he paces the waiting room that night, eyes wild with worry while trying to remain strong and vigilant as they wait through the night for news.

Come dawn, the medicine they have been pumping her with does its job and her contractions stop. “She and baby will be just fine, though they’ll stay in the hospital until she delivers,” Diane reports, pale with relief.

Only then does Robert finally let himself relax, collapsing into a chair next to Aaron.

“What a fucking night,” he breathes, leaning into Aaron’s steady form, his head dropping to his shoulder.

Aaron manages to sneak in one kiss to Robert’s temple before he’s fast asleep.

*

But it is an early spring morning, that Aaron wakes to find Robert watching him.

“Morning,” he says, feeling a bit unnerved under Robert’s tender scrutiny. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, just watching you sleep.”

He’d never meant for it to become a thing, watching Robert sleep. But it is in those moments - Robert asleep with all the lights on, his iPad still propped up in both hands. Robert asleep in the rocking chair in Victoria’s upstairs nursery, baby Lydia wrapped up on Uncle Robert’s chest, finally asleep too. Robert naked, asleep spread eagle on their bed, fucked so raw he hadn’t even moved from where Aaron had left him - where Aaron sees all the many facets of this man who, over a year on, is still his.  

It’s in the quiet of the night, the quiet that doesn’t bother him anymore when Robert is by his side, that he realizes just how much he loves him.  That they are making a solid go of it and that they are happy.

Still, it feels a bit strange to be on the other side of the observing.

“That’s not creepy at all, is it?” Aaron says, not willing to divulge his long standing secret.

“You think it’s creepy? Really?” Robert asks with a shy smile.

Aaron shrugs, happy to play coy.

“Well, too bad. Cause I watch you sleep all the time and I'm not going to stop.”

Robert kisses him quickly as Aaron is stunned silent.  He lays there, in their bed, listening as the shower comes on.  As if on cue, Robert starts singing horribly off key.

Aaron rolls over, a small smile on his lips.  He pulls Robert's pillow towards him, tucking it under his arm as he shuts his eyes again, happy to catch a few more minutes of sleep.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to the Robron Fandom. Thank you for inspiring me to start writing again, for always encouraging me, and for sticking by each other even as things have gotten tough for Robron. 
> 
> I wanted to give us something a little bit sweet before this next week's episodes! So I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Follow me on tumblr (auselysium) Comments are like gold, wrapped in chocolate, wrapped in bacon, served to you by a shirtless Danny Miller. You get the idea...leave me some love! :)


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